Delta Machine

Background and composition

According to Dave Gahan, Delta Machine marks the end of the trilogy of records that Depeche Mode were recording with producer Ben Hillier.

The album is Martin Gore and Gahan's thematic continuation to a dark, gloomy and bluesy aesthetic that Depeche Mode had started to explore in the late 1980s. The Quietus writer Luke Turner viewed it as the band's "most powerful, gothic, twisted, electronic album since Violator".

Critical reception

Delta Machine received generally positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 65, based on 33 reviews. Entertainment Weekly's Kyle Anderson hailed Delta Machine as "the strongest album the group has put out this century" and praised the work of collaborator Christoffer Berg, stating he "lends a long-lost toughness that runs through much of Delta". The Times critic Will Hodgkinson commented that the album "finds the band striking just the right balance between the chirpy electro-pop of their early days and the harsh industrial dissonance of the later albums". Benjamin Boles of Now proclaimed it as "the best album of [Depeche Mode's] career" and found that the songs "find the band leaping in thrillingly unexpected directions and landing on their feet every time."

Laurence Green of musicOMH opined that the album "lays the template for some of the band's most vigorous, energetic material in 15 years", concluding, "In what has always been a frighteningly consistent career, Delta Machine stands there amongst the band's finest work." Mat Smith of Clash noted, "The freshness comes through in the delivery, which is as loose as electronic music permits, delivered with the bluesy rawness that frontman Dave Gahan wanted from the album." AllMusic editor David Jeffries described the album as "a well-written [...] and lusciously recorded set of serpentine siren songs", adding, "Those who don't buy into the dark eroticism that drives the album will be disappointed as well, but don't mistake 'dour' for 'down for it' when it comes dressed-in-leather pants, because the simmering and dark Delta Machine is certainly the latter." Rolling Stone's Jon Dolan stated that the album "celebrates brooding faith and slippery solace without scrimping on Depeche's trademark blackstrobe punishment."

Caroline Sullivan of The Guardian expressed that on Delta Machine, "Depeche Mode are as hamstrung as ever by their refusal to admit even a chink of light into their world of gloom [...] The flip side of the coin is that the austere music that accompanies all this darkness is often very beautiful", commending the band for their ability to "balance lushness and minimalism to stunning effect". In a mixed review for Pitchfork, Douglas Wolk criticised the album's lyrics, while concluding, "There is not a single moment of shock or freshness on Delta Machine, and it's enormously frustrating to hear what was once a band of futurists so deeply mired in resisting change." Andy Gill of The Independent panned Delta Machine as the band's "weakest album in some while" and felt that "[t]he more melodramatically that David Gahan invites us to have him 'penetrate your soul... bleed into your dreams', the more the sculpted electronic backdrops seem like curtains hiding the puniness of the wizards wielding the machines." The Observer's Kitty Empire viewed that "a kind of blood-red synthetic blues bubbles to the fore; it blows hot and cold." Emily Mackay of the NME commented, "Things improve with the defter 'Soft Touch/Raw Nerve' and 'Soothe My Soul', but Delta Machine sounds like it's just warming up."

Commercial performance

Delta Machine debuted at number two on the UK Albums Chart, selling 28,450 copies in its first week; it is Depeche Mode's 16th album to reach the UK top 10. It slipped to number 14 the following week, selling 7,146 copies. In the United States, the album entered the Billboard 200 at number six with 52,000 copies sold in its opening week, earning the band their seventh top 10 album on the chart.

The album debuted at number one on the German Albums Chart with first-week sales of 142,000 units. In France, Delta Machine debuted on the French Albums Chart at number two, selling 52,000 copies. The album sold 8,200 copies to debut at number two on the Canadian Albums Chart.

Track listing

All tracks written by Martin L. Gore, except where noted.

Depeche Mode

Production

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